The present invention relates to an apparatus for drying a photosensitive material, after the exposed photosensitive material is dipped in treatment solutions and subjected to treatments, for example, development.
There is known a photosensitive material treatment apparatus of the type in which an exposed photosensitive material is subjected to treatments such as development, bleaching, fixing, bleach fixing, stabilization, rinsing, etc., so as to form an image on the photosensitive material. In the above treatments, for example, the exposed photosensitive material, while being transferred, is dipped in treatment solutions, which causes the photosensitive material having the image formed thereon to swell. Also, the treatment solution adheres to the surface of the photosensitive material. Therefore, it is necessary to delay transferring the photosensitive material until after the treatment solution deposited on or contained in the photosensitive material is evaporated so as to to dry the photosensitive material. For this reason, generally, the photosensitive material treatment apparatus has a photosensitive material drying section provided integrally with the apparatus.
Photosensitive material treatment apparatuses having a drying treatment are disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Utility Model Applications Nos. 138939/83 and 62840/88 and Japanese Laid-Open Patent Applications Nos. 118839/89, 118840/89, 123233/89 and 123236/89. The drying sections of these apparatuses are designed to apply a blast of hot air to the photosensitive material after it passes through the treatment solutions, or designed to apply infrared rays to the photosensitive material to evaporate the water content on the surface or in the interior of the photosensitive material.
In the above conventional drying methods, the atmosphere around the photosensitive material is heated or dried by a blast of hot air or infrared rays, so that the photosensitive material is dried by the heated or dried atmosphere. Therefore, the drying efficiency is low, thus presenting a problem that a long time is required for drying the photosensitive material.
Further, as a result of evaporation of water droplets deposited on the surface of the photosensitive material, evaporation traces may remain on the surface of the photosensitive material, thus presenting a problem that the quality of the image formed on the photosensitive material is degraded.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of this invention is to overcome the above problems, and more particularly to provide a photosensitive material drying apparatus which can efficiently evaporate water content from photosensitive material subjected to various treatments, thereby drying the photosensitive material in a short time, and enabling a good image to be formed on the photosensitive material.
The above object of the invention has been achieved by a photosensitive material drying apparatus wherein a photosensitive material, after being dipped in a treatment solution, is dried, wherein, in accordance with the invention, a plurality of water-absorbing rollers for contact with the same surface of the photosensitive material are provided in the vicinity of a photosensitive material-introducing inlet and are arranged along a direction of transfer of said photosensitive material, the water-absorbing abilities of the water-absorbing rollers increasing progressively in the direction of transfer of the photosensitive material. Because the plurality of water-absorbing rollers in contact with the photosensitive material positively absorb the water content deposited on the photosensitive material, the photosensitive material can be dried in a short time at a later transfer step in the drying apparatus.
A large water content tends to be deposited on or contained in the photosensitive material disposed near the introducing inlet. Therefore, the first water-absorbing roller brought first into contact with the photosensitive material can easily absorb the water content even if this roller has a low water-absorbing ability. The water content remaining on the photosensitive material after the contact thereof with the first water-absorbing roller is much smaller than before the contact with the first water-absorbing roller; however, it is difficult to absorb all the water content on the photosensitive material using only the first water-absorbing roller. In order to absorb the small water content remaining on the photo-sensitive material after the contact of the photosensitive material with the first water-absorbing roller, the second water-absorbing roller to be subsequently brought into contact with the photosensitive material is required to have a higher water-absorbing ability.
In the present invention, the water-absorbing ability of the second water-absorbing roller is determined to be higher than that of the first water-absorbing roller. Therefore, even the small amount of water content remaining on the photosensitive material can be absorbed. Further, even if a small amount of water content remains on the photosensitive material after the contact of the second water-absorbing roller with the photosensitive material, the third water-absorbing roller higher in water-absorbing ability than the second water-absorbing roller is brought into contact with the photosensitive material to absorb the water content thereon.
Therefore, by suitably determining the number of the water-absorbing rollers and by increasing the water-absorbing abilities progressively in the direction of transfer of the sensitive material, the water content deposited on the photosensitive material can be positively removed.
Further, since the photosensitive material from which the water content has been positively removed is rapidly dried at a later transfer step, the time required for the drying step in the drying apparatus can be greatly reduced.
Still further, since the water content deposited on the photosensitive material is absorbed by the water-absorbing rollers, no trace of evaporation of the water content will be present on the surface of the photosensitive material, and therefore a good image can be formed on the photosensitive material.
The photosensitive material in the present invention is not limited with respect to the treatment method in so far as the photosensitive material is dried after it is dipped in the treatment solutions. The kinds of photosensitive material used in the present invention may be any of a negative photosensitive material, a positive photosensitive material and a direct positive photosensitive material, and examples of such material are silver halide photographic film, silver halide photographic printing paper, X-ray film, and the like.